Day Trip in Lonavla

Sara and I went on an adventure last Sunday 50km west of Pune to a little town called Lonavla.  Near Lonavla in two little villages near there are two beautiful caves in the mountains.  We caught a train at 7:50 in the morning to arrive in Lonavla at about 9:00 in the morning.  Thanks to the Lonely Planet Guidebook (which comes highly recommended) we had a little map of Lonavla that led us to the local bus station where we c aught a bus ($0.20/person!) to the little town of Karla at the base of the first mountain.  The climb up the first cave took about 20 minutes and was it ever busy!  Most of the people there were coming to visit a much newer Hindu Temple built right infront of the caves.  There were stone steps that led the whole way up the mountain and lining these steps were vendors selling everything from live chickens, lassi (a sweet or salty yogurt drink), chikki (like peanut brittle that Lonavla is famous for), flowers for offerings and lots of little jewelry.    The caves at the top of the mountain were absolutely stunning.  A very large sanctuary type room made up the main part of the caves with many little caves around it which served as the monks living quarters.  The wood beams shown in the picture are said to be original which is impressive considering how old they are (almost 2000 years).  Surprisingly, the caves were very open to visitors with not much regulation, it was very dark on some stairways and families were even having little picnics inside of them.

We made our way down and walked about two hours south through two small little towns to the base of the next mountain caves called Bhaja Caves.  This cave was much less busy with less then 20 people compared to the previous caves 500.  The cave itself was very similar in appearance with a large single room and many smaller monks quarters surrounding it.

The fun began when just as we were going to start heading down the mountain a torrential downpour occurred.  We had ignored the forecast for 60% chance of showers all day and until then we thought we were going to elude the weather.  About 20 of us tourists huddled inside the large sanctuary room pictured and waited out the rain, thankfully Sara and I brought cards and dice to pass the time.  After about 30 minutes the rain let up and we headed down the mountain quickly incase it started up again.  The great thing about this was that the rain caused there to be lots of waterfalls on the way down the mountain which were gorgeous!   As soon as we made it down the mountain the rain picked up again and didn’t quit for the rest of the day.  We were able to catch a rickshaw to the local station to take a train back to Lonavla ($0.08/person!) where we had dinner and then made our way to the train station to head back to Pune.   In Pune it was still raining which meant that the rickshaws at the train station would be very expensive, especially for foreigners.  So we decided to walk a ways out of the train station and try to catch one which kind of worked after about 15 minutes of getting rained on.  Ironically, just earlier in the week I had asked Sara if she thought we would ever be in a rickshaw that broke down.  Well, about halfway home the rickshaw broke down and after arguing with the driver that we only owed him half the fare, Sara and I had a delightful walk home in a soft sprinkle.  To top it off, about 5 minutes after arriving home the rain started coming down in sheets.  We had a wonderful little weekend daytrip with everything included for under $20, which is something that I will never miss about being in India.